A 5-Foot Long-Tapeworm Came Crawling Out Of A Man's Body After Eating Contaminated Sushi

As far as food nightmares are concerned, we rank tapeworms at number freakin' one. Why? Because they're absolutely heinous. Not only are they slimy, creepy-crawly creatures reminiscent of rainy days and frightened childhoods, they can live (undetected) in the human body for up to 25 years. Yes, you read that correctly — 25 years. That's the average age of a millennial in 2018, just to put it into perspective. Man, we're getting the chills just thinking about it.

According to a local California news report an unidentified man was rushed to the emergency room after complaining of abdominal pain and diarrhea. What the doctors found was, well, in a word? Terrifying. Dr. Kenny Banh, described the scene in an episode of his podcast, This Won't Hurt A Bit:

“He grabs it, and he pulls on it, and it keeps coming out,” Bahn recounted. “He picks it up and looks at it. And what does it do? It starts moving.”

OK, yep, we're going to let you guys take a minute before continuing on to the image. We have to warn you, while it doesn't look that gross — please take a moment to imagine this thing living inside of you. You know, just casually hanging out in your intestines soaking up all the nutrients intended for you!

Like we said, not the nastiest thing to look at, but, woof, the circumstances are just too foul to comprehend. The cause? Turns out, the patient in question loved sushi! So much so, that he admitted to eating raw fish every single day. The CDC warned in 2017 that tapeworms were found in wild-caught salmon from the American and Asian Pacific coasts. Another fun fact, tapeworms can grow up to 30-feet. This guy wasn't even fully grown! Word to the wise:

You can listen to the This Won't Hurt A Bit on their website here or iTunes.